She moved fast, trying to block his attempt to sting her even as she got out of his tail’s way. Both moves were pure reflex, but both came too late.
The barb caught.
Jet’s attempt to escape only came close to knocking her off her feet. She struggled, kicking out at him again, and let out a shriek when the barb dug deeper into her flesh.
Trazen caught her elbow before she could fall, holding her there.
His other hand followed, strong on her opposite shoulder. When she fought to kick him, he dragged her close enough to block her. She tried to knee him, but he absorbed the blow easily, gripping her hair in his hand.
Trazen held her in place as she continued to fight him, seemingly oblivious to the blows of her fists and feet. He stopped her only when she reached for his tail.
She’d meant to yank the barb forcefully from her flesh, even if it took a good chunk of her leg with it, but steel-like fingers clasped her wrists, holding her hands away as the venom let go. Jet abruptly felt sick as the first rush hit her bloodstream, dizzy beyond anything she’d felt when Laksri had done the same. Her mind shifted into an odd, gray space that remained strangely clear. She found herself wondering if the sickness came from mixing the two different males’ venom...or if it had something to do with the fact that Trazen had stung her unwillingly.
Jet couldn’t come to any conclusion, though.
She turned over the different possibilities in her mind, and realized too many variables existed. The combination of her blood and Trazen’s might be a factor, too. Some Nirreth venom might be more compatible with some human blood than others. Her levels of adrenaline could be affecting things. The fact that Trazen’s venom might be more powerful than Laksri’s might affect things, too...or the fact that some Nirreth could supposedly sting at different doses if they were skilled enough.
Jet turned all of this over, trying to remember the first time with Laksri, on that culler ship. That had been different, too. Despite Richter’s threats that multiple stings hurt worse than a single one, none had hurt as much as that first sting.
But it still hadn’t felt anything like Trazen’s.
She tried to think past the sensations flooding her bloodstream. Pieces of clarity sifted through her mind, but the venom made it difficult to sort through those, too.
Then, the thoughts just stopped.
Her mind fell into a gentle peace.
She stood there, staring up at Trazen’s eyes, watching them grow deeper and brighter as they looked at one another. His face grew expressive in those few seconds too, until she found she couldn’t look away from its dramatic planes, or the way his skin seemed to glow under the artificial lights. He was unusual-looking for a Nirreth, she realized. His cheekbones protruded higher and more dramatically from his face. His lips formed a less-curved line, and then there was the unusual almond shape of those deep-black eyes, eyes that seemed to see through her as he stared at her.
The gold flecks in them grew gradually brighter, until she got lost in them.
As his face slowly came back into focus, she realized his fingers touched her. Her eyes drifted down to where he stroked her arm, then back up to his face, where his eyes studied hers with equal care.
She started to speak, to try and communicate with him in some way, when he stung her again. He stung her in the side that time, near to where Laksri stung her earlier that day...right through the thin material of the dress she wore.
Jet could only look down, staring at his dark tail against her skin.
She saw some blood when he removed the barb from her flesh that time, but by then, she could barely remember why she should care.
He touched the place where he’d cut her, and she felt regret on him, even an apology.
Through the haze of her thoughts, something about that regret confused her. Jet couldn’t remember why, though, or why his guilt might once have surprised her.
When she looked up next, Trazen had an arm around her shoulders.
He held her tightly, watching her face as he stung her a third time. He let the venom out slowly that time. He emitted a low grunt as he did it, then immediately stung her again, on the same side, crushing her body against his as he let go even slower.
She felt something slide out of his control.
She watched it go, fascinated.
He was kissing her then, biting her neck, his tail wrapped around her leg.
Somewhere in the back of Jet’s mind, she felt a faint stirring of unease...but she couldn’t reconcile that with what she felt through the venom. She couldn’t reconcile it with what she felt on Trazen himself. Nothing she felt in him alarmed her.
The expectation that there should be something to alarm her only confused her.
She felt his arms tug her tighter against him, his tail now coiling around and massaging her waist. He stung her again, and now she found she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
A fog descended over her mind, a feeling of confusion, of wading through fast-moving water. She watched his heart beat, his fingers as they combed through her hair. She heard the purring sound when it started deep in his chest, like a giant cat, deeper and somehow more melodious than the sound Laksri made.
The last of her resistance fled; her bones and flesh felt like water too, or maybe just heated blood. She couldn’t remember where she was, or who Trazen was exactly...at least, who he had been before all of this. Even so, a distant part of her fought to hold onto some remnant around what she remembered, gripping it in her mind as if her life depended on it, trying to remember why she’d seen all of this so differently, even just a few minutes before.
Briefly, she fought to extricate her mind from the tendrils of the venom, but all that came out was a kind of helpless gasp, along with a more intense desire to have his hands on her.
His tail coiled around her more aggressively.
When she opened her eyes next, she was gripping Trazen’s arms, leaning into his mouth as he kissed her. He made a low sound against her, and she felt the barb as if from far away as he stung her again. She could feel him now, the whispers of his mind where she held him.
He was aroused. He was really aroused. He wanted...
He wanted that fear of hers to go away.
The thought managed to surprise her again. Some part of her thought he’d be okay with her being afraid. She’d expected the want, but she thought it would be anything but benign. She’d expected him to want her...
Submissive.
His desire worsened as he felt the thought in her mind.
He wanted that, too. She felt him wanting her that way. He let her see him imagining it, even as his body warmed against hers. He wanted her like that, but not the way she’d expected. He felt frustrated, instead. He could feel that she wanted him.
He could feel her understanding him, too.
He didn’t understand why she was still...
...Fighting it.
Was she fighting?
What part of her was fighting him?
She tried to find that part, to fix it somehow, but his arms only crushed her harder against his chest, and Jet felt so confused there...but only because it all felt so familiar. She felt like she belonged there, in his arms. An image of a blonde, doll-like woman, wearing almost no clothes passed through her mind, tried to make itself meaningful.
A kind of pained cry left his lips when he saw her thinking about it.
He caressed her face, and she felt that other thing on him again, frustration, even a kind of desperation. His fingers massaged her neck, her arms, her chest. He skirted around more intimate parts of her, but she felt him wanting to touch her there. Wanting...
Laksri said...he’d said...
He said Trazen’s consorts never lived very long.
The Ringmaster raised his head, looking down at her.
Jet saw a heavier look rise to his dark, fathomless eyes, even as he seemed to force a faint smile to his lips. He stroked her hair, caressing it out of her face, lean
ing down to kiss her again. The different images blurred. She felt him trying to assert one thing into her mind, then another. She felt a kind of futility on him as he realized she felt him through it, that she recognized him past the disguise of the angry brute who hated humans.
His fingers were rougher than Laksri’s, yet oddly gentle, too. His mind moved differently. Fast, like Laksri’s, but somehow, the thoughts there were sharper, had more behind them. She felt empathy for him, touching the sadness below the...
Mask. The mask he wore.
She could see it now.
She couldn’t help but taste who he was, see things through his eyes, feel the world through him, even as he tried to convince her the mask was really him. The nearness shocked her...it seemed to shock him, too. She felt him consider moving away, creating distance, but as much as he thought it, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to do it.
Instead, his mind lingered with hers, his hands skirting around the parts of her he didn’t feel ready to touch. She felt him explore the connection between them, trying to understand her. He seemed to be touching her with his mind as much as his fingers, trying to make sense of how the parts of her fit together. He seemed surprised by some of what he found. He seemed touched, perplexed...even angered.
She felt him wanting things he felt there, too, seeing them almost as belonging to him. Something about the possessiveness touched her, even as she heard him thinking...
He’d made a mistake.
He’d stung her too many times.
He held her tighter. The jealousy worsened. She would hate him, but he would want her more after this. So would the Prince. He would want...
Feelings conflicted in that single point, grew lost.
What the hell was he doing?
Jet felt a kind of resignation steal over him. She followed all of his thoughts like trails through the rabbit warren of his mind, the profusion of feelings, with a kind of wonder. The empathy of the venom helped her to see how intelligent he was, how patient. He could wait a little longer. He could wait, to get what he wanted...
Now was not the time.
Now was not the time.
He repeated it in his mind, convincing himself. Maybe he wanted her to agree with him. Maybe he wanted her to argue with him, too.
He couldn’t, though.
Not yet.
Rationalization or not, lie or not, he couldn’t undo it now. Even when the venom left her system, the connection would not leave either of them, not entirely. She would be able to see him, even when she didn’t want to. Even when she’d gone back to thinking of him as the enemy, she would see him. He would see her, too.
That connection would strengthen in time, if he let it.
Even under the watery flow of the venom, his certainty brought a flicker of nerves back to Jet’s mind. It also worsened her desire, making it unbearable.
He watched her come to the realization that she wanted him.
His hands tightened on her skin as the feelings intensified. He pressed against her, kissing her again. He deepened and slowed his kisses until she couldn’t pull apart his wanting from hers. She felt the promise there. She felt him wanting her to feel it, to take it seriously. He wanted her to believe it, to understand how intensely he meant it.
Jet was still standing there, trying to think, when it occurred to her that he had a hand under her shirt. He was touching her, still avoiding anything he considered too close. He touched her back, massaging the muscles under her skin. He touched her belly, and she desperately wanted his hand to travel either higher or lower, but he wouldn’t and she couldn’t decide how to feel about that, either. His fingers soothed away some of the frustration behind that desire, partly from the faint air of ownership she felt lingering around him.
The two feelings tangled, grew confused, enough to paralyze her.
When the hand went away, she felt close to tears.
Minutes later...or maybe hours...she found herself sitting on the bed next to Laksri’s inert form, fighting to breathe.
Trazen was gone.
Her body still trembled with his venom, vibrating like it suffered from an electrical shock. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look up from where she stared at the floor. Panic pooled in her belly, fed by the absence of him, the lack from the venom without its owner. She felt alone. Really and truly alone, despite the heartbeat of Laksri lying next to her on the bed.
That throbbing pulse only served to obscure both of them, to make both of them harder to reach. The other pull remained, making the pain in her gut worse.
He was gone, though.
Trazen was gone.
THE TOY SURPRISE
Jet stood behind a granite boulder next to a clump of oak-like trees with wide roots.
Her eyes took in the landscape, knowing none of it was real.
She gazed down over the flower-dotted, virtual field, centering her mind. She focused on the primitive-looking town that stood on the field’s other side, the dwellings and business structures made mostly of mud bricks and stone. She could see flickers of metal and black armor in glints against the sun, but further than her eyes could accurately identify.
They were definitely hiding her target there, in that town.
She still hadn’t figured out what these so-called enemies of hers were after exactly...or even what they were supposed to be, species-wise. They definitely weren’t human or Nirreth. They might be real, one of the species from another world the Nirreth had conquered. Or they might be completely made up, since she’d never seen anything like them in the xeno-biological lessons she’d been force-fed as part of her assimilation and Rings-training studies.
Whatever they were, they wore a kind of armor that reminded Jet of ancient humans.
She’d seen something like it in paintings hanging in Nirreth art galleries, with stoic human faces wearing beards and long hair and clutching giant swords. The weapons of these creatures were modern, though, if not of a type used by either humans or the Nirreth.
Anyway, it hardly mattered what they were.
Jet had already worked out their weapons’ basic range.
Given the way the Rings matches usually worked, she guessed she’d just stumbled upon the location of their nearest base, too, meaning the town itself.
From its basic layout, she could guess the location of the closest sentries, given the topography of the field and the layout of the surrounding forest. Most importantly, from the demo she’d witnessed a few miles back, when half of her virtual companions had been killed, Jet now knew what their weapons could actually do.
The news wasn’t exactly good. One direct hit would essentially blow a hole in her the size of a baseball within a hundred meters of being hit.
That hole got progressively bigger, the closer she got to the gun when it went off.
So yeah, not a lot of wiggle room there.
She’d lost track of the physical layout of the arena itself. Meaning the actual, physical layout of the Rings, minus the virtual overlay and electronic impulses sent to her via the sense-suit. She no longer knew where she was in relation to specific landmarks, such as the lake, the weapons turrets, the ladders, the moving walkways.
That was the real reason Jet slowed down.
That, and the fact that she’d managed to run down too much of the clock for what was otherwise a relatively simple “capture the flag” type run, as her trainer, Alice, called them.
Jet needed to take stock, revise her strategy...but she didn’t have time for that, either. Once she lost track of her location inside her mental map, she couldn’t help but feel like she was just ticking down seconds until she got shot. Or eaten.
She lost her orientation fast this time, almost before she knew what happened.
Somewhere in that drop from the exploding bridge, the wade-run through the swamp and then running for her life through poisonous, stinging undergrowth to get away from that sniper and his guerrilla team, Jet got completely turned around.
All tha
t stuff ate up a lot of time, too.
Jet knew she would lose the run if she couldn’t find a way back into that layout, and soon.
It was only the second time she’d lost the map entirely.
The first time was on her very first run, in those faux-sewers of old Vancouver.
That time, she’d had an excuse, at least. She hadn’t trained for an underground floor, so she’d been caught totally flat-footed, on a level she didn’t know at all.
The Rings operators had been experimenting more of late, though, trying to find ways to throw her off-balance. They knew about her “special skill,” as they called it––meaning Jet’s propensity to memorize things, especially spatial-type layouts, after seeing them only once or twice. Richter called it a photographic memory, and Jet supposed maybe it worked something like that. Until she came to the Green Zone, however, she didn’t have any idea how rare it was, to remember things like she did. She figured most people could do it.
Not everyone, sure. Her brother Biggs got lost a lot, even in the tunnels of skag town. Jet figured most people could do it, though. People who weren’t space cadets, like Biggs.
According to Richter, she’d been wrong.
Jet’s “special skill” won her a higher ranking in the Rings.
It also meant that the operators tended to get creative, trying to fool her off her awareness of the physical layout of the course. They did everything they could, in fact, to confuse her in terms of where she moved and stood within the arena itself.
Jet also got the impression, more than once, that the ops controllers had their own bets going, that they actually enjoyed the unique challenge that Jet’s skill-set presented. While she was happy she’d made their jobs more interesting for them, she wished they didn’t get quite so much fun out of trying to outsmart her. Knowing the physical layout and its limitations gave Jet an advantage that she only fully appreciated when she lost it, like now.
She had no idea how the other contestants could stand running blind in here. She needed that damned map. Without it, she felt like she was groping in the dark with a big, red target painted on her chest.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 49
